Comparison of Clinical Diagnosis and Histopathological Report of Referred Biopsies to Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology Department of Dental School of Babol, Iran (2003-2010)

The most effective way to reach a correct diagnosis in the oral lesions with similar clinical features is doing an appropriate biopsy from lesion and histopathological evaluation of it. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the concordance and non-concordance between clinical diagnosis and pathology reports of patients referred to department of oral and maxillofacial pathology of dental school in Babol، Iran.

This cross sectional study was performed on 662 patients'' records from the archive of oral and maxillofacial pathology department of Babol dental school to determine the concordance between clinical diagnosis and histopathological diagnosis of oral lesions during the years 2003-2010. Demographic information such as age and gender of patients، the color and consistency of lesion، anatomical location، biological process and appearance of lesions، peripheral or central، exophytic or flat lesions، specialty of physician، concordance between clinical and histopathological diagnosis was extracted from patients'' records.

There was concordance in 79% of cases in correct clinical diagnosis according to the first priority in differential diagnosis. The most of correct clinical diagnosis (94%) has been in third decade of life. The most of correct clinical diagnosis has been in gingiva (100%). Correct clinical diagnosis in the benign lesions (94. 3%) was more than malignant lesions (90. 9%) and the correct clinical diagnosis for exophytic lesions was more than other lesions (94%). Correlation coefficient for determine of concordance between clinical and pathological diagnoses was obtained as 80. 0% (p=0. 018).

Although a great concordance was observed between clinical and pathology reports، the inconcordance was significant.